Aug. 2nd, 2016

log: looking for carver in the woods

There's a helpful old man who hangs out near the coffee shop that loudly proclaims he saw the "tall and serious man" from the Catholic church run off that away. He points his old, wrinkly finger towards the southern woods that stretch like walls across the backdrop of the town. The forest seems to grow if you look at it too long, as if to say that anyone who steps inside will be lost forever and there's no rhyme or reason to it. The trees are the teeth, the forest is the monster and Carver ran in as a willing participant of a midnight snack the night before.

As the gang ventures deeper, the world gets darker. It's not natural. The sun hasn't quite set yet and under normal circumstances, there should be a rosy light filtering through the needles and leaves of the trees overhead. No, this is bottled midnight that only grows darker the more the gang wanders. Blueish purple like a bruise. Summertime orbs of firefly light buzzing cutting soft lines through the darkness. Frogs, crickets, owls. Chatter. That's the worst part about ghosts by far. They don't scream right away most of the time. It's a slow build, like a good song. They chat with each other, they break tree branches, they wait until your blood turns cold and then HOOWWLL, SCREAM, BOO!

Not yet. That's for later.

Carver, bless his heart, left a trail of petals. They're beautiful and shriveled like melted glass. Green, yellow, pink, blue. They glisten under the wandering of light orbs and lead the gang to a warm fire up ahead. A campfire. Smartly dressed boy scouts from another era, shouting their campfire songs raucously as they roast marshmallows. They give the gang a bad feeling because sometimes one of the boys turns and looks at them with murder eyes, smiles and then goes back to singing.

Across from him is Carver. He's slumped over, dirty, hair in his face. He is not singing along.

Jun. 25th, 2016

The antique store: Ella & Will

Who: Ella and Will When: RecentWhat: Window-shopping at the antique-store. Warnings: Doubtful.

It was a bad day, in so much as Will could quantify any day in particular as such. There were scales, of course. Ways of cataloging days with tags, much like the little paper ones associated with objects under glass in the window in front of him. One might tack 'bland, middling grey' on a particular day and 'sunshine and optimism' to another. It was not a bad day on the other side because Will knew those kind perfectly well. The bookstore, being his measurement in all things, had gone shadowy and blurry in the corners and sleep had been something desperate and hard to dig oneself out of and the taste of metal on his tongue numbed anything appetite-shaped to the inconsequential. Those bad days were familiar. He counted the spaces in between. Five was the worst, but five had been almost nothing at all to convert the bad into ordinary. Five had been his own blood and he had a scar along the flat of his left thumb that suggested five hadn't gone anywhere at all.

He'd held out for twenty before. Twenty was good, except he'd started seeing the world in copper shimmers, waves that rippled out from behind people. He'd heard things, birds mostly and Will had stopped hoping twenty would come back again ordinary because he thought twenty was now long past. Fifteen was ordinary now. Fifteen was manageable on a small scale, but he was thinking as he looked at what must have been a blessing-cup, ornate wrought silver and beautiful in a heavy, mad kind of way, that fifteen might be pushed at the corners if you could do something big enough. The problem was how big, and with Carver in town Will felt guilty even speculating on big.

But it was a bad day the other side of fifteen, which meant he knew without looking at his own reflection that today his eyes were all inked-pupil, and he was the color of rubbed paper. He was thinner today because of the thick taste of pennies on his tongue for the week and he wore a sweater dragged over a shirt because he was cold, immeasurably so. But the thing about bad days this side, when the world wore a little bit of what it could possibly be if you reached out and pushed at it with a little bit of what you had with you, Will thought dreamily, was that you could undo the bad all at once, if you wished.

Of course, that way madness lay. The very predictament the bad day was all about. But there were things to look at. Will liked the new owner of the antique store because the display changed often enough to be interesting. So he leaned, peripherally with his elbow braced against the wall, and he looked because just then he'd felt last night reach up and grab him by the back of the neck in an all too unfriendly fashion.

Jun. 24th, 2016

News:

[The going-missing of half a dozen chickens from the local farm is small potatoes. This isn't all the cats in the land yowling at the lake-side and it isn't fish in the lakeside turning belly-up. It would be entirely uneventful if it weren't for two things. The first is that the chickens are very much missing, rather than dead which would have suggested a fox. And the second that if anyone was out late (three am late) in or near the woods, they would have seen green smoke from between the trees.

But like we said. Small potatoes. What's a bit of chicken blood between friends?]

News: The Lake

[Friday afternoon, first responders are called to the lake after a local fisherman calls in having found someone unconscious on the shore. The details surrounding how he came to be on the shore, drenched and hypothermic, are fuzzy. It's when he's finally settled in at the hospital that he manages to answer any questions. It's nothing more than names, however. Atticus. Carver. Will. Michael. He manages little more than that before falling asleep once more. It's not a restless sleep, however. This one is fraught by movement and jerks, a rapid heartbeat. Nightmares. Eventually, mild sedatives are used and the restlessness ceases.

Hospital officials make efforts to contact those that were named, starting with those who have less common names. Phone calls are made and messages are left.]

May. 23rd, 2016

[public]

I'd like to take a poll as to whether doughnuts at Sunday service would up attendance numbers. Does this seem like a productive measure? Or do I purchase them regardless and feed them to the birds if no one does show?

Apr. 23rd, 2016

Bar: Atticus, Casper, Carver, Michael, Will

[Fixing relationships wasn't something Atticus did. Was too involved. Was too active. He wasn't looking at this as fixing anything. Was just some beers, and maybe things would calm down between his old students. Even suggesting the gathering was, for Atticus, very proactive. But evening came, and he found himself walking to the cop bar, hands in the pockets of his old and faded jeans, and a tan jacket over a sweatshirt that had faded from gray to near white.

As he neared the bar, Atticus briefly lit up a smoke. Carver probably didn't like cigarettes. Will might ask what they were. Better safe than sorry, and Atticus didn't even have a read on Casper these days. Michael he understood best, but Michael lived under his roof, and Atticus was fairly sure Michael was dead. Had died. Had died and was no longer dead. Wasn't sure how that worked, but Atticus didn't question it. Carver claimed to be dead. Have died. Same thing. Maybe Casper and Will died along the line. Could ask.

Atticus, as he pushed open the door to the crowded bar with it's gleaming wood, had to chide himself for even thinking it. Would be a hysterical opening line, wouldn't it? Hey, boys, you two also dead? But that would get everything off on the wrong foot. Macabre humor must be kept at a minimum. An altercation would only make the acrid and overly cold air that embraced Atticus turn into something much more solid and much more dangerous.

Just some beers. The pool table was free, and Atticus claimed it. Pool sticks could be weapons, but he hoped it didn't get that far. Ordered a beer, racked the balls, and waited for the first of the boys to arrive.]